Charcoal Mockingjay and Other Poems of Panem
by Zach J.E. Payne
Summary: A collection of poetry inspired by 'The Hunger Games'.
1. Charcoal Mockingjay

**i.**  
ignition is simple, any spark would do,  
but you doused her feathers in petrol  
and lit a match, thinking for fireworks  
and perhaps a bit of roast bird to sate  
the appitites of your people, so long used  
to dinner and a show while sitting luxury's lap.

built as a norse general set to sea, she was  
laden with pearls for oysters to reclaim,  
silk extracted from the butterfly's tomb -  
she was beautiful, so beautiful, too beautiful;  
goddess sent to kneel at the guillotine  
for dubious crimes; you always loved  
a little bit of mystery and a whole lot of lies.

you struck matches and poured more gasoline -  
there is something innately beautiful  
in the hues of something unfamiliar burning,  
chemical pockets creating colors  
that the old rainbow didn't know.

but fire is catching, flames and light devour  
inequity and reveal the best-kept lies.  
fire is catching -  
beware the work of your own hands.

**ii.**  
just a pile of ashes remain;  
this girl is no phoenix, to die  
ensconsed in flames to rise again.

there is no magic, the pile of corpses  
and the river of blood are real, too real  
for any human heart to handle, this girl  
is just a girl; seventeen years  
and her head bears cain's mark, a necessity  
to keep her lungs moving and her terse eyes open.

what have you done? j'accuse, j'accuse.  
she hews her crucifix from the smoldering rubble  
that is her life; her conscience overwhelmed  
with dead weight dropped by raging warlords.

compressed, compacted, elongated, painted, and burnt,  
photographed and digitized; soul manipulated  
by many hands; carved up, claimed, and devoured,  
but still the raging gods are unsatisfied -  
what more, exactly, can they demand from skin, bones  
and an an exhausted soul - don't worry,  
we can cover the cracks with paint and plaster,  
we can smooth away all the humanity.

it isn't beautiful what remains, the tired husk  
and consumed bones of beauty and talent, of fire  
and ice and rage; they couldn't be quelled, she wasn't  
stopped, she wasn't extinguished. point your fingers  
and tell your stories; you're only human,  
you wouldn't even think to blame yourselves.

**iii.**  
time heals all things, waves lap away  
the dried blood; a decade of sleep  
erases the fatigue, though the demons camp  
forever in the tiny, backwoods corners of the brain.

time heals all things, the cruelty becomes  
history, his story, her story, passed on  
to children; mother, son, father, daughter,  
nature resumes and repairs what men destroy.


	2. Malum Est

When all is said and done, the sun sets into blood,  
a tired cascade of sanguine hues. Sadness descends.  
The devils come out, tongues wagging, lapping blood  
and cracking bones for marrow.

They feed on evil. Simply put, for those who believe  
that nothing is fixed, evil is. In a child's rigor mortis,  
in the sound of a gun, in jacinth sunsets and mother's tears.  
Evil is.

I would believe that the dead girl dances  
somewhere out in dawn's early light; I would  
believe her lover taps his foot counting some strange music  
as they waltz into timelessness.

But evil is. She sits still in a clapboard coffin,  
waiting for tongueless hands to lift her  
to a plot of tired and abused soil,  
watered by mother and fertalized by father's expectations  
all buried. All gone. Memento Mori.

Spent chambers litter the ground,  
change wrought and brought by flames.  
Evil is. Look in the eyes of the warlords,  
how they can't meet their soldiers. Evil is,  
in the promises forged, lies told,  
and the change never given for blood rendered.

I would believe that the songbird sings,  
somewhere outside the wrought stone walls,  
that freedom is somewhere, music flows pure  
somewhere far, far from here - but evil is,  
and never dies. We bury the bones, sing our hymns,  
carry our crosses.

We live. Hearts burdened and eyes ringed,  
we persevere, we endure, in so defying  
the very will of truth: evil is,  
and would have us die. We do not accept,  
we do not condone. We live. Evil is,  
but we are too.


End file.
